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Brunno Ferreira will look to return to the win column at UFC Baku. | Getty/UFC
Brunno Ferreira will look to return to the win column when he faces Ikram Aliskerov at UFC Baku on Saturday.
“Hulk” arrived in Baku, Azerbaijan, with coach Andre “Dida” this past Thursday. Ferreira was initially supposed to face Aliskerov at UFC 318 last July before his opponent withdrew from the event due to injury. Instead, Ferreira submitted replacement opponent Jackson McKey in the first round.
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“That fight should have happened before, but Ikram hurt his foot six days before the fight. The opponent changed [then], but we had already studied his game a lot,” Dida, the Brazilian TKO head coach, told Sherdog.com. “I´m very impressed with the fans here. They are very excited about the event. Baku breathes fighting. They have a big statue of a wrestling champion on the street of the hotel.”
“‘Hulk’ wanted to arrive on Thursday, so we can get totally adapted to the local time zone. He is coming very prepared for this fight. Ikram fights the same way since his Brave tenure. ‘Hulk’ is more unpredictable and also has a good judo and jiu-jitsu game, He also has KO power. So he has all the tools to surprise and neutralize the Russian.”
Assessing ‘Poatan’ and ‘Shogun’
With the experience of having trained Bruno Silva to face Alex Pereira, “Dida” also analyzed the Brazilian’s loss to Ciryl Gane at UFC White House.
“Poatan took a lot of punches. He was counting a lot on his range advantage at middleweight and light heavyweight. If it were not for that advantage, “Blindado” would have hit him more when they fought. I predicted that at heavyweight, where he lost his reach advantage, fighting a guy like Gane with long range that moves like a welterweight would give him problems. I cheered for him, but unfortunately my prediction came true.”
“Dida” is also training Mauricio Rua to face Glover Teixeira under boxing rules at Spaten Fight Night 3 in August.
“‘Shogun’ is training every day at my academy in Curitiba,” he said. “Yesterday he called me to say how happy he is that he has to train for only one discipline for this fight since he trained MMA all his life. He is really motivated and so am I. After all, the promotion couldn’t have choen a better main event, because Glover and ‘Shogun’ are both very aggressive fighters always looking for the KO. There is no way this fight will not be exciting.”
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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